Death by age, sex and underlying cause, 2001 registrations. Extracted from Health Statistics Quarterly 14 - Report: Death registrations 2001, cause, England and Wales.
This report gives numbers of deaths registered in England and Wales in 2001 by age and sex, and for selected underlying causes of death. It also compares death rates by sex and age with those for deaths which occurred in 1999 and 2000. The year 2001 is the first in which cause of death has been coded according to the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10).
Deaths by sex and age of deceased
A total of 532,498 deaths were registered in 2001, compared with 537,877 registered in 2000, a decline of 1.0 per cent.
The number of male deaths fell by 1.2 per cent and female deaths by 0.8 per cent between 2000 and 2001.
Deaths by underlying cause
Table 2 gives deaths by sex and age for selected underlying causes of death.
In 2001 the main causes of death were cancer, accounting for 26 per cent of all deaths, ischaemic heart disease (IHD), 20 per cent, respiratory diseases, 13 per cent, and cerebrovascular diseases (stroke and related conditions), 11 per cent.
Within these overall percentages, there are some differences between the figures for males and females. Higher proportions of men than women died of cancer (28 and 24 per cent respectively) and of IHD (23 and 17 per cent respectively), while more women than men died of cerebrovascular diseases (13 and 9 per cent). However, the proportions dying of respiratory diseases were similar (12 per cent of males and 13 per cent of females).
Explanatory notes
Coding of underlying cause of death
Since January 2001 cause of death has been coded to the Tenth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) (see references 1, 2 and 3 below). This was introduced on the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and replaced the Ninth Revision (ICD-9) (see references 4 and 5 below) which had been in use since 1979. ICD-10 represents the largest change in the ICD in over 50 years. The major changes have been described in detail in Health Statistics Quarterly 08 and 13 (see references 6 and 7 below). In order to help quantify the changes, ONS has carried out a bridge coding study. All deaths registered in 1999 were independently coded to both ICD-9 and ICD-10 and the causes in each revision compared using internationally agreed groups of equivalent codes. The results can be found in the Report 'Results of the ICD bridge coding study, England and Wales, 1999' in this publication (see reference 8 below).
Cause of death is assigned by an automated coding system with the exception of deaths due to external causes (ICD-10 codes V01-Y89). These are coded clerically using information from coroners' certificates (including inquest verdicts) to produce consistent figures on suicides, homicides, and other deaths not from natural causes.
Occurrences and registrations
This year in which a death is registered may not equate to the year of occurrence of that death. Up to 1992 ONS (formerly OPCS) publications gave numbers of deaths registered in the data year. However, since 1993 most of our published figures represent the number of deaths which occurred in the data year. This change has little effect on annual totals but makes it easier to analyse seasonal variations in mortality. We, therefore, take two annual extracts (see reference 9 below):
1 The first annual extract from our deaths database, produced in April following the data year, comprises registrations in that year. Outputs produced using this extract include this Report and an area-based Report in Population Trends, as well as the annual VS tables and the Compendium of Clinical and Health Indicators.
2 The second extract is produced in the September following the year to which it relates, and comprises occurrences in the data year. This extract forms the basis for the annual mortality reference volumes in the DH series.
REFERENCES:
1 World Health Organization (1992) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision. Volume 1. World Health Organization: Geneva.
2 World Health Organization (1993) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision. Volume 2: Instruction Manual. World Health Organisation: Geneva.
3 World Health Organization (1993) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Tenth Revision. Volume 3: Alphabetical Index. World Health Organization: Geneva.
4 World Health Organization (1977) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, Ninth Revision. Volume 1. World Health Organization: Geneva.
5 World Health Organization (1978) International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related health Problems, Ninth Revision. Volume 2: Alphabetical Index. World Health Organization: Geneva.
6 Rooney C and Smith S (2000) Implementation of ICD-10 for mortality in England and Wales from January 2001. Health Statistics Quarterly 08, 41-50.
7 Rooney C, Griffiths C and Cook L (2002) The implementation of ICD-10 for cause of death coding - some preliminary results from the bridge coding study. Health Statistics Quarterly 13, 31-41.
8 Office for National Statistics (2002) Results of the ICD-10 bridge coding study, England and Wales, 1999, Health Statistics Quarterly 14, 75-83.
9 ONS (2001) Mortality Statistics: cause 2000, series DH2 no 27, section 2.2.
